09/05/2009 | Climate
As scientists, Drill, recover, and perserve samples of ice from the artic they are able to study climate and temperature conditions. As writeen this article, the artic has a moved farther away from the sun since 1 AD (or 1 CE) which should bring cooler temperatures, yet the temperature is not only hotter but also accelerating the melting of glaciers as seen from these high resolution photos of the artic, evidence is supporting that the artic has been warming since the indutrial era of 1800s. As the world becomes more devleoped it will be the chellenge of humanity to find solutions to global warming while maintinaing the quality of life that we have developed for ourselve within the last 200 years.

08/21/2009 | Climate
As reported from this video the Atmospheric Brown Cloud scientists have been tracking for atleast six years is an example of extreme air pollution. Not only is the polution bad enough to be visible from the sthe surface but also can be seen in satellite photos from space. Among the research of the effect of air pollution are NASA scientists stdying the Atmosphereic Brown Cloud in the U.S.

Although all coastal areas of the world are effected by this, Pacific Islands like Tuvalu comprised of mostly atolls, are bracing themselves and begining to take this scientific data seriously.

07/10/2009 | Climate

Xnview is a free Digital Photo Management Software program for Microsoft Windows.

Purpose: As computers, digital cameras lower in price while hard disk storage space increase, more and more people have massive digital libraries. Though most photos are uploaded to social websites such as flickr, most people still keep original copies on their local computer. The demand then increases for simple and quick file organization, management, and a search ability.

Usage: The foundation for photo management is a good folder structure, with some logical basis (category, date or other) for you files so you don’t have 5,000+ .jpgs in a single folder. Xnview is not an image editor, so it’s not used to crop and color correct images. As a Photo manager it’s great with a file browser and thumbnails, you can select single or multiple image files at once. What you can edit with Xnview is the file metadata (keywords), the program natively supports IPTC metadata but you can have it copy the keywords to XMP (which can be read by other programs).

Keyword Directions: Keywords are good for organization and later search and filtering of images. When you use Xnview you just have to browse for the image files, select the thumbnail and right click, click on edit IPTC data… (or use Ctrl + I) then a Edit IPTC Data window pops up, click on the keywords tab. Add keywords and check the box “update or Create XMP” , click “write” then “close” and your keywords will be added.

You can search for keywords by clicking thte Serach icon (binoculars) then check ITPC check box. There’s a drop down list the has All fields or “keywords” type the keyword, click search and then “browse” and it’ll search and filter out the image by keywords.

Competitor: Many professionals who use Adobe graphics software programs are familiar with Adobe Bride which is a digital graphics management and preview players for most adobe file and most digital photo formats. Adobe Bridge is a great program except requires the purchase of an Adobe Creative Suite software product. Even if you are able to afford an Adobe Creative Suite product it’s still licensed based meaning it’s limited to the number of computers you can install it on before you need to purchase a new license key. Also if you ever share original digital photo files with friends and family they will need their own copy of Adobe Bridge to edit and use of the metadata (keywords) you may have edited in the file.

Comaprison: There is a slight learning curve with using keywords and Xnview and Brige have learning curves for their software, though XnView insn’t as easy or polished as Adobe Bridge it still offers a lot of features.

Conclusion: So if you have the money definitely use Adobe Bridge but if you like freeware and potentially want to share digital photo management with friends and family then download and try XnView.

Is also a free small program that will give you a lot of individual file information. This is good for those who are interested in photography and using manual camera settings, as there is a lot of information on the file such as Aperture, Focal Length, ISO amd exposure that you won’t have to dig into the program menus to view.

06/01/2009 | Climate
This video highlights how climate change is effecting ocean life in an area with more cor l diversit than the great barrier reef

05/10/2009 | Climate
As written in this article, the increasing awareness of climate change as well as rising sea levels has prompted the Pacific Developing Member Countries (PDMC) to begin a special fund to support the fianincial challenges of climate change.

04/19/2009 | Climate
It goes without saying that the eyes of the world are looking at China for many things. China is not only the world's most populated nation, one of its oldest, and fastest developing nation. It's impact and influence on the world and the Pacific have not gone unoticed.

This video gives an enviromental perspective on the challenges that the world faces with examples of going green in China.

04/05/2009 | Climate
Antartica is a continent not commnly associated witht he Pacific islands. Although its costline resides on the Southern Ocean, being a polar continent, it is connected to all Oceans besides the Artic, which is debatable since all of the worlds oceans are connected by nature and divided by man made maps.

Regradless of your perspective it can go unsaid that although mostly unihabited by humans except researchers and fishermen, Antratica is connected with the world and the world with Antartica.

The reality of global warming and polar ice melting is proven daily with time based comparisons and real time observations such as this article which shows the ice breaking in the Antartic. Private research and government organizations including the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are monitoring events to collect data and us e that data to predict the effects of climate change for the future.